The festival is centuries old and gains significance because of several myths and traditions. Traditionally, the festival was a time to honor ancestors. According to legend, in ancient times, there is a head like a lion, and a horny monster called "years". It stays in the mountains almost the whole year, but every turning point of the year, "years" searches food by harming the crops, people and animals. But it fears red color, fire, does not like clean environment. so the beginning and ending of the year, people clean their house, paste red festival couplets onto the door, play firecrackers, hang red lights, the "years" was scared to escape. so people play drums to celebrate, and congratulate each other, this is the origin of "New Year". Chinese New Year is celebrated in countries and territories with significant Chinese populations, including Mainland China, Hong Kong (officially as Lunar New Year), Macau, Taiwan, Singapore, etc.
in China, regional customs to celebrate the New Year are quite different. The evening preceding New Year's Day is an occasion for families to get together for the annual reunion dinner. It is also traditional for every family to thoroughly clean the house to sweep away any bad luck and to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red color paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of "good luck" or "happiness", "wealth", and "longevity". Other activities include lighting firecrackers, exchanging gifts and giving money in red paper envelopes. People cook lots of kinds of food for new year, but dumplings is the most popular in the meals for the celebration of the festival.
I expect very much tomorrow's coming, especially the reunion dinner.
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